Sunday, May 7, delegation members had some free choices for the morning. A couple of people went to Saint George Anglican church. Another group went to the Lutheran Church in the old city that has service in English as well as Arabic. And a third group took taxis to Ramallah city, just north of Jerusalem, where there is a friends meeting, otherwise known as Quaker meeting House. The Friends have been an active presents for a just peace in the occupied territories for many years. 

I was in the Ramallah contingent because I wanted to visit my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, who live there. It was a delightful brunch and conversation for me, and the others enjoyed the respective worship service experiences. As far as I know, there are no Unitarian Universalist fellowships or other entities in Palestine or Israel. 

How people got to their various destinations is revealing of the apartheid and occupation that continues. The Lutheran, an Anglican churches were walking distance from the hotel and not a hassle to get to. Going to Ramallah the American Friends Service Committee have a taxi company on standby that has white (Israeli) license plates. This kind of taxi will get you through the military checkpoints more easily. Palestinian vehicles have yellow license plates. And everyone has an ID that states their nationality. The road to Ramallah is populated with several checkpoints. These tend to be located near Israeli settlements and are ostensibly for the protection of the settlers. One should bear in mind that the Israeli government carried out the occupation of the territories in 1967 making it one of the longest occupations in modern history, and according to international law, it is illegal for a country that is an occupying power to transfer its population to an occupied territory. And yet the construction of new settlements, for Jews only, has continued unabated for decades. There is a lot of racism against the Palestinians. A number of these settlers have been going on rampages for a while, burning olive groves, attacking Palestinian farmers, dragging Palestinians out of cars, harassing children on the way to school and so on.

We took the taxis from Ramallah to Bethlehem. The early afternoon was a scheduled time for visiting the Church of the Nativity, Manger Square, and some of the Palestinian owned shops nearby that sell crafts.
I asked the driver to do us the favor of passing by the Banksy Hotel, which is an anti-occupation establishment where visitors can stay and have a view of the 24 m high occupation wall.

When we got to the Manger Square, to our surprise, a patriarch of the Greek Orthodox church was paying a visit, and therefore there was to be a several hours pause in the line to get down to the lower levels of the church of the of the Nativity to see the star marking the spot that was the birthplace of Jesus. We were able to walk into the Orthodox section of the complex as well as the Roman Catholic sanctuary and took some very nice photos. Trying to get to a shop was a bit more challenging because the recommended one and several others were closed due to the musical processions that were starting to take place in honor of the patriarch visit. We did get to look at some beautiful embroidery and ceramics and other creative arts and crafts, and a special lucky experience was watching the youth, marching bands pass by there were notably at least two band groups with bagpipes and drums. It’s likely that the first bagpipes were created somewhere in the greater Mediterranean, perhaps what is known as Greece today and then possibly spread to the Roman empire who’s soldiers and followers brought the instrument to the British Isles were the Scotts developed it to its current form. Perhaps they were brought by people from Scotland or England in the 19th or 20th century and taught as part of secondary school programs for Palestinian Christians. These bands were scout groups from various churches that included more than one gender. Presumably these are all children from Christian families living in the area. The Christian population of Palestine at the turn of the 19th century was somewhere between 10 and 20% Christian Arabs but due to the occupation, and the restrictive wall that has built a ramp been built around parts of Bethlehem, which impacts economy and centers of life many Christians have left for other countries, reducing the population to perhaps one or 2% of the Palestinians. People are really grieving the shrinking of their community. Pictures are available on our Facebook and Twitter @uujme. The next step for our delegation was the YMCA on one side of Bethlehem, where we met with Rifat Kassis rep representing a Palestinian Christian ecumenical coalition called Kairos Palestine. This organization was founded using the model of the Kairos organization during the time of apartheid in South Africa, issuing a call for churches around the world to be in solidarity, with the oppressed people of South Africa, calling for freedom. The Kairos organization represents the grassroots leaders of various Palestinian Christian denominations. Refat emphasized the deep and growing concern about the continuing displacement of Palestinians from their homes and lands. May 15 is when many Israeli Jews will surprise, celebrate the declaration of the state of Israel. The same day is commemorated by Palestinians as a Nakba, or the catastrophe in which more than 700,000 were driven from or fled their homes, in fear of terrorists, Jewish militias that committed massacres. This displacement is what enabled the state of Israel to be created because suddenly there were so many homes available that have been emptied of their original inhabitants of these homes were given to Jews. The displacement has continued since 1948.  Two laws were passed in 1950 that  accelerated the displacement. The first law was the absentee law, which declared that if Palestinians were not in their homes, and on their properties, they could be taken over by the state which did happen the Palestinians that had left their homes were never permitted to return. The second law was the law of return, which allowed any Jews, anywhere in the world to immigrate to Israel, as if they were returning to their lost homeland. Palestinians have never been granted that capability with many ending up in refugee camps around the region and immigrating to other countries. There are tens of millions of Palestinians in the diaspora.

we found out later that earlier in the morning of Sunday, the Israeli authorities carried out the demolition of an elementary school near Bethlehem. This type of behavior happens on the regular, as Palestinians are not given permits for constructing the social infrastructure that they need for their population, so they take matters into their own hands as most humans would do and build their own structures without a permit inevitably the Israeli government will issue a demolition order, and it will be carried out. See this tweet by Issa Amro from the organization use against the settlements: https://twitter.com/issaamro/status/1655162183473414151?s=46. 

How was the Kairos coalition able to come together in the first place about 13 years ago and to go on to publish fhe recent Dossier on Israeli Apartheid? Rifat states that the members avoided any topic that would divide. They kept their vision toward ending the colonizing apartheid system. They are the voice of grassroots Christians, maybe not of all church leaders. They maybe influenced church leaders to speak out. But as they stated to the World Council of Churches, which has failed to say anything about the apartheid situation, saying that they’re not hearing from church leaders about it is that church leaders in the occupied territories are under a great deal of pressure from the occupation itself. In order to operate as a church they need certain permits, and they fear that if they make outspoken statements about the apartheid situation, the Israeli government will make operating a church very difficult. Rifat’s request to us was to not allow World Council of Churches and churches in the US and UK to delay solidarity by hiding behind waiting for local faith leaders to speak up.

After this important meeting, the tour bus took us back to Jerusalem, where we are staying at the National Hotel, a Palestinian owned enterprise. We met at the top floor restaurant at the hotel for a delicious shared meal. Following this, we received information from the head of Sabeel, a Palestinian Christian liberation theology center. In Arabic, sabeel means the way or path or the spring as in the body of water. This group was established a few decades ago and works hard to legitimize the concept that resisting oppression can be part of one’s theology. Omar requested that we think hard about theories of change in what faith groups do to support what Palestinians call for. His feeling is that the old model of bringing people to see and go back and tell is going to make big changes. This has been happening for a long time that faith groups will come witness what is happening to the Palestinians go back and tell their congregations and organize some phone calls and visits to elected officials, and yet Palestinians are still struggling under the same impression with worse results every week.  He cautioned us also against being the saviors and viewing Palestinians as the victims, and said that when he sees the courage and confidence of Palestinians in the face of oppressive power, he sees people that are already liberated in their minds. Indeed, it is the steadfastness of the Palestinian people in there, continuing resistance to their oppression that gives solidarity its momentum. Omar also highly recommended a book that Sabeel published last year based on a deep study of antisemitism. Now we just need to do more to draw churches onto the path of responding to the call of Palestinian churches and other organizations to take action that will ultimately get the United States to stop enabling this entirely dismal situation.

The structures and power of settler colonialism, occupation, and apartheid must be dismantled.